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1 " This is when I understood that we can do without almost anything – our home, even our country. But we will never do without other people, and we will never do without family. "
― Hyeonseo Lee , The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story
2 " Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe. I will never truly be free of its gravity, no matter how far I journey. "
― Hyeonseo Lee
3 " I hope you remember that if you encounter an obstacle on the road, don’t think of it as an obstacle at all… think of it as a challenge to find a new path on the road less traveled. "
4 " In her world, the law was upside down. People had to break the law to live. The prohibition on drug-dealing, a serious crime in most countries, is not viewed in the same way – as protective of society – by North Koreans. It is viewed as a risk, like unauthorized parking. If you can get away with it, where’s the harm? "
5 " I wanted to belong, like everyone else around me did, but there was no country I could say was mine. I had no one to tell me that many other people in the world have a fragmented identity; that it doesn’t matter. That who we are as a person is what’s important. "
6 " My closest friend at this time was my tiny pet dog - it was one of the cute little breeds that people in other countries put frocks on. I wouldn't have been allowed to do that, because putting clothes on dogs was a well-known example of capitalist degeneracy. "
7 " He’d valued his dignity more than his own life. "
8 " He showed me that there was another world where strangers helped strangers for no other reason than that it is good to do so, and where callousness was unusual, not the norm. "
9 " ..."we can do without almost anything – our home, even our country. But we will never do without other people, and we will never do without family "
10 " Kindness toward strangers is rare in North Korea. There is risk in helping others. The irony was that by forcing us to be good citizens, the state made accusers and informers of us all. "
11 " After years in the Chinese workforce, I had developed an emotional attachment to money. My earnings were my hard work and long hours; my savings were comforts deferred. "
12 " Kind people who put others before themselves would be the first to die. It was the ruthless and the selfish who would survive. "
13 " As many discover, freedom – real freedom, in which your life is what you make of it and the choices are your own – can be terrifying. "
14 " Dictatorships may seem strong and unified, but they are always weaker than they appear. "
15 " I had to learn Mandarin. And I had the best teacher – necessity. You can study a language for years at school, but nothing helps you succeed like need, and mine was clear, and urgent. "
16 " One of the tragedies of North Korea is that everyone wears a mask, which they let slip at their peril. "
17 " It was the dilemma all three of us had. Every choice we made cut us off permanently from someone we loved. "
18 " I will never truly be free of its gravity, no matter how far I journey. "
19 " Dictatorships may seem strong and unified, but they are always weaker than they appear. They are governed by the whim of one man, who can’t draw upon a wealth of discussion and debate, as democracies can, because he rules through terror and the only truth permitted is his own. "
20 " North Korea is an atheist state. Anyone caught in possession of a Bible faces execution or a life in the gulag. Kim worship is the only permitted outlet for spiritual fervour. Shamans and fortune-tellers, too, are outlawed, but high cadres of the regime consult them. We’d heard that even Kim Jong-il himself sought their advice "
